To the editor:

What happens to Social Security payments if the government shuts down? President Obama would have you believe checks will not be sent to the more than 60 million Americans who are due them. He is not telling the truth, but that’s no surprise given Obama’s lack of character.

During the last major shutdown, which lasted about a month starting in late 1995, the Social Security Administration mailed checks throughout the crisis, and a close reading of established law makes it clear the agency has the legal authority to do so again. President Clinton’s lawyers determined that Social Security checks could be mailed during a shutdown, because the program doesn’t need Congress to authorize funds for it each year. Instead, Social Security benefits are paid from the program’s trust fund. It doesn’t need an appropriations bill to continue. Only Obama can stop Social Security checks from being sent out as usual.

This definitely will not be the last of the Democrat scare tactics. (Did they ever document how many grannies were eating dog food after President Bush “stole” the election in 2000?) Here’s what should really scare you when you think about who to vote for in 2012.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, in October of 2006, almost six years into George Bush’s presidency and one month before mid term elections which resulted in Democrats taking control of both the House and Senate, the federal deficit was $248.2 billion. By the time President Obama was elected in 2008, it was $458.6 billion, an increase of 85 percent in just two years. Today it stands at $1.4 TRILLION, an increase of 563 percent under Democrat leadership, and more than 10 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. (Figures based on today’s dollar value.) Only three other times in our country’s history has the deficit been higher than 10 percent of GDP: during the Civil War, WW I and WW II.

Throughout Obama’s presidency, our country has not even had a budget. Obama’s proposed budget last February was unanimously rejected by the Democrat controlled Senate and the Senate refuses to consider the House proposed budget. And the last time we had a balanced budget was 1957.

Our founders were adamant that spending on government not become generational debt. As it stands, my children and spouses, grandchildren and great grandchildren collectively owe almost $1 million ($877,800) for the debt run up by a Democrat controlled Congress and this president.

While we need to vote Obama out of “our” house in 2012, we need to also be sure we elect a second conservative Florida senator in 2012. One who has the courage of Marco Rubio who, oh so correctly, described Obama as incompetent.

Kathy Jones

St. James City